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Threads introduces tags to help users categorize posts
Tags are a key way for social media users seek out content, but so far they've been missing on Meta's fledgling Threads platform.
Carbon's Trainer is a smart mirror designed to deliver guided workouts
Carbon’s Trainer smart mirror is now available for pre-order at $1,750 on Indiegogo.
Apple hints at item-tracking AirTags in support video
You don't have to rely on rumors or buried code to know that Apple is working on a tracking tag -- the company has inadvertently spoiled its plans. Appleosophy spotted an Apple support video (unsurprisingly removed) that hints at offline Find My support for currently unannounced "AirTags." The clip didn't provide a peek at the tag or otherwise outline their functionality, although it's clear they'll use Bluetooth to reveal the whereabouts of your lost items. They're believed to use ultra wideband for extra precision.
Leaked screenshots show how Apple's tracker tags might work
New screen shots have revealed more evidence of Apple's possible tracking tag system and how it might work. iOS 13 might feature a tab called "Items" within the "Find My" app that will display a map and list of items you've set up to track, according to MacRumors. When opened, the tab declares you can use the app to "Tag your everyday items with B389 and never lose them again."
iPhone 11's ultra-wideband chip helps you AirDrop with the right person
Apple introduced the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro with nary a mention of its rumored tracking tags, but the underlying technology appears to be present and accounted for. True to earlier reports, all iPhone 11 models include an ultra-wideband chip, the U1, that should eventually have a variety of uses for highly precise location finding. Apple's product pages mention one feature that will be available very shortly, on September 30th: point your device toward someone else with a U1-equipped iPhone and AirDrop will prioritize them to share files faster. This won't make a night-and-day difference, but it could be helpful if you're trying to swap photos with a gaggle of iPhone-toting friends.
Apple Pay will support NFC stickers on scooters and parking meters
Apple is reportedly working on a new NFC feature that will allow iPhone users to make Apple Pay purchases by tapping special, NFC-equipped tags. That means retailers won't need bulky terminals, and iPhone users won't need to download a third-party app before, say, buying clothes or adding miles to their scooter rental. According to 9to5mac, Apple is partnering with Bonobos clothing store, PayByPhone parking meters and Bird scooters on the initial roll out.
Apple could make the iPhone's NFC more useful at WWDC
Apple has a lot in the cards for WWDC, and that might include improvements for... well, cards. The 9to5Mac team and Steve Troughton-Smith claim to have details of developer-friendly updates that will be unveiled in early June, and NFC support would be in line for a serious upgrade. App developers will finally have the option to read NFC tags based on ISO 7816 (usually ID and access cards), FeliCa (Japan's tap-based system) and MiFare (a popular mass transit format). In other words, you might use your iPhone to enter your office or hop aboard a bus in many cities.
Instagram may soon let you tag your friends in videos
Instagram is testing a feature that lets users tag their friends in videos. Unlike with photos, where an overlay on the image shows everyone who's tagged, you can tap a button that takes you to page listing all the people tagged in the clip.
Twitch nixes Communities, adds tags to improve content discovery
Video game streaming service Twitch launched Communities in February of last year. These were ostensibly hub page for specific games or topics that members could create to help people find content. Now the company will shut these pages down mid-September in favor of a new tagging system. Twitch will also add 10 new categories for streamers to help describe their content for better discovery.
Plex's machine learning tech auto-tags photos for you
Plex has made it easier for premium users to organize their photos and to unearth specific snapshots from their massive collections. The service now auto-tags photos based on what its new machine learning technology sees. If the tech detects a dog in a photo, for instance, it could tag that image with the words "dog" and "puppy." Since tags are useless if you can't sort your images with their help, Plex has also updated its web app's interface to be able to search tags. Further, the interface will now display related images based on the tags you look up.
Facebook gives select Pages the power to tag their products
Someday, you might see products tagged in Facebook images and videos the same way people are today. Facebook has begun testing an experimental feature that allows businesses running Pages to tag their products, according to Business Insider. The publication has spotted the option in their account and confirmed the ongoing test with the social network. What does it mean for buyers like us? Well, when you click on a tagged product, you'll be taken straight to a dedicated page where you can read more information about it.
Steam's game recommendation tags are now ready for everyone
At a loss as to what to play next after finishing all the games you bought in that last Steam sale? Don't fret -- after months of beta testing, the service's tagging feature is officially ready for prime time. Visit a product page and you can browse tags to see other games you might like in a similar vein, no matter how vague the criteria. Click "sci-fi" when checking out Space Marine and you'll see loads of futuristic titles; choose "Warhammer 40K" and you'll see more specific recommendations, like Space Hulk. You can create your own tags as well, although you'll want to use discretion. Valve is both consolidating tags that have a similar theme and getting rid of tags that aren't really helpful -- as much as you might want to label bad purchases as "junk," you'll have to resist the urge.
New Twitter feature labels #hashtags you may not recognize
My feed is currently littered with hashtags I've never seen before. Iberia (the Spanish airline) tweeted with #ttot (Travel Talk on Twitter), Al Gore used #CRinBrazil (Climate Reality in Brazil) and Verizon posted something with #MobileBKsweeps (no clue). Things can get even more confusing during evening hours on the East Coast, when tags like #TWD (The Walking Dead), #AHSFX (American Horror Story) and #HIMYM (How I Met Your Mother) might appear. A quick trip to Google typically clears things up, but most of the time it's simply not worth the hassle. According to #WSJ, Twitter's now testing a tool that would help bring some clarity to those cryptic tags, in an attempt to make the service more user-friendly. The Wall Street Journal noticed expanded hashtags in Twitter's iOS app, and while reps declined to comment, it appears that the new feature is beginning to roll out. #itsabouttime.
Valve adds flagging option for user-made Steam tags
Earlier this week, Valve implemented the beta trial for Steam Tags, a feature that lets the Steam userbase collectively assign new tags to games. This was meant to help users find games relevant to their interests by searching for less conventional concepts, but as the "check your privilege" tag on Gone Home suggests, some users are taking a different path. Valve has since updated the beta to deal with problematic user-made tags. The update brings with it a flagging function, meant to report tags that are offensive, abusive, unhelpful, spoiler-related or irrelevant to the game they're assigned to. New tags will also have to be used by more users than before in order to show up in the popular tags section. In the event that an inappropriate tag does make it into the popular tags section, it will need to be approved for multiple games before it's listed in the recommendation-oriented "For You" tab. We can't really act surprised that some users have alternative plans for user-made tags, but it's nice to see Steam try and fix the feature for those looking for something other than snark from their shopping advice. [Image: Valve]
Steam's new user-tagging feature matches the best games to your tastes
The next time you get a specific urge to play a certain type of real-time strategy game, with a sci-fi theme, base-building and large quantities of blood for the blood god, Steam will have you covered. Instead of just browsing its catalog by genre, the Steam client now lets all users add their own tags to product pages -- tags which then become searchable by everyone else. The community seems to be embracing the feature quite quickly, with plenty of eclectic labels already visible (someone has already tagged CoD: Ghosts with the word "garbage," for example). As a result, the store should steadily become easier and more fun to navigate, especially with added features like automatic, tag-based game recommendations. Spess Mahreens, for the Emprah!
A look at OS X Mavericks and tagging
Apple introduced file tagging in OS X Mavericks, letting you assign custom metadata to a file that you can retrieve using Finder. According to our own Brett Terpstra, tagging may be difficult at first, but once we adopt the practice, it may change the way we think about the filesystem of an OS. With iCloud and sandboxing, Apple is distancing us from the folders that hold our data. In this folder-less existence, Tags will become the glue that holds our data together and lets us organize our files. It'll be an iOS-like experience in which you don't have to worry about where files are being stored. You can find files by their tags and don't have to dig through folders and Finder windows to organize your work. You can read more about tagging and OS X in his "Mavericks and Tagging" article on his blog.
Samsung releases TecTiles 2 NFC tags for Galaxy S 4, available for $15 today
Remember Samsung's TecTiles NFC-enabled stickers? Well, much to our dismay, they don't work with the company's flashy new handset, and Galaxy S 4 owners haven't had an alternative to stock up on until today. Samsung's new TecTiles 2, which can perform tasks similar to the smartphone maker's previous-generation product, are now available, priced at $15 for a pack of five. They're compatible with all Samsung NFC-enabled Android smartphones, and offer up a variety of functions, such as muting your device when you tap a tag in the boardroom, or checking you in on Foursquare by touching a TecTile in a restaurant, for example. The small square stickers can now be ordered on Samsung's website -- if you'd prefer to pick them up in store, you'll need to hang tight until June.
Ask Massively: Feeds and faceplustweets
Google Reader might be on its way out, but old-school RSS is here to stay. If you haven't jumped to Feedly or some other RSS platform yet, July 1st is your doomsday. How is this relevant to your interests and why am I telling you this in Ask Massively? Well, many of you readers probably don't camp our front page, and if you're not into social media and the latest faceplustweet craze, RSS can help you keep up with the parts of Massively you want to read (and avoid the ones you don't).
CES 2013: Kensington offers a tracking solution with the Proximo Tag Kit
Kensington is in attendance at the International CES here in Las Vegas this week, and the company kindly sat down with TUAW this afternoon to show off some of its latest products. The most interesting of their recent offerings is something called the "Proximo Fob and Tag Kit," which is a relatively cheap tracking solution designed to work over Bluetooth 4 with your iPhone 4S or iPhone 5. We've seen tagging kits like this before, but Kensington's, now available, offered a nice set of features at a very reasonable price. The idea is that you can use an included key fob or a tag (just the tag is available for US$24.99, while a full fob and tag kit is $59.99) by attaching it to whatever object you'd like to keep safe, whether that's your keys, a purse or even a kid or a dog. Then you can use Kensington's free app to get alerts whenever that item/person moves out of range of your phone, so if you ever walk away and leave your keys at your desk, or if the dog wanders out of the yard, you'll know right away. The app offers a nice bit of customization -- you can attach five different tags to it, and each one gets its own alert sound and an icon (or a custom picture), so there are plenty of different options for tracking various objects. The app also lets you set the sensitivity for each tag, so you can set your keys to stay very close, or set your car for a wider range. You can also track your phone directly from the fob (though the tag doesn't have any extra buttons on it, so that's a no-go there). If you ever lose your phone, you can just hit the button on the key fob, and then your phone will light up with an alert. Finally, Kensington's kit also tracks your GPS, and while it can't actually find items via Bluetooth (because that service isn't positional at all), it can let you know where you last saw them. Whenever you lose track of a tag, the app will mark that point on a map, so you can be aware of where you last were when the tag went out of range. It's not quite as nice as geolocating right to the tag, but it works for helping you find lost items. Aside from the Proximo tags, Kensington also showed off new charging kits, including a 4.2 Amp dual-USB charger for the car (enough to charge two different iPads up at the same time) for $34.99, a "Fast Charge" Lightning adapter to charge any iOS device for $29.99 or an iPhone-only charger for $24.99. Kensington is also offering another line of iPad cases, including some more stylish "Folio cases" for the iPad, and even a line for the iPad mini. Finally, while not iOS-specific, the company was showing off a Contour Overnight backpack, with a special laptop-sized pocket and easy liquid access for going through airport security checkpoints. The backpack is a very impressive addition to the company's luggage lineup, and should also be available later on this year.
Ask Massively: Rules, sources, and buy-to-play MMOs
There are 4,001 words in the Massively style guide. The abbreviated version of the style guide. And that's without counting a few hundred emails detailing other rules that our writers must follow, plus English grammar and syntax, plus hand-me-downs from Captain Joystiq and peevish precepts imposed by a mean ol' editor-in-chief. Rules help us deliver a consistent product to you, the readership, and when we don't, you notice. Gamers follow a set of rules, too, when it comes to judging games. Indie games are judged less harshly than blockbuster developers. Overhyped games are held to a higher standard. Games with subs are cut less slack than freemium titles. You might not have codified all these little rules into a 4,001-word document, but they're rattling around your brain making decisions for you all the same. So let's talk about rules and how they apply to Massively's sources and buy-to-play MMOs like Guild Wars 2.
